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NB: This stream contains both FTRs 551 and 552 in sequence. Each is a 30 minute broadcast.
For further background on the “King of Peace” controversy, see:
King of Peace video, YouTube.com
“Moon Over Washington” by John Gorenfield; The Gadflyer June 9, 2004
Introduction: Supplementing numerous programs featuring information about Sun Myung Moon’s Unification Church, this broadcast highlights the domination of the sushi industry in the United States by True World Group—a Moon proprietary. Begun in the 1970’s, Moon’s seafood business is far-reaching and vertically-integrated, featuring boat manufacturing and repair facilities, fishing fleets, storage and preparation facilities and transportation lines. When seafood lovers indulge their taste for sushi (in American restaurants, at least) they are helping to support the Unification Church. As we have seen, the Moon group appears to be an extension of the patriotic societies that brought fascism to Japan. In addition to reviewing some of the Japanese war criminals that played a prominent role in the rise of the Unification Church, the program sets forth Neil Bush’s professional association with Moon. (Neil is the brother of George W. Bush, and one of a number of Bush family members who have worked with Moon’s organization in the past.) The broadcast notes the anti-democratic philosophy of the Moon organization and its fundamental contradiction of traditional American political values.
Program Highlights Include: The Moon organization’s use of its mass weddings to skirt U.S. fishing regulations by making Japanese and Korean nationals into U.S. citizens; True World Foods skirting of FDA safety standards and intimidation of FDA inspectors; True World Group’s competitive advantage over other sushi distributors, stemming from the fact that many of its representatives speak Korean, Japanese and Chinese—the native language of many first-generation restaurateurs; the role of Japanese war criminals Ryoichi Sasakawa and Yoshio Kodama in the Moon organization; the role of Kodama in the looting of Asia during War World War II; the role of both Kodama and Sasakawa in the postwar recovery of Golden Lily loot; Kodama’s close relationship to the CIA.
1. Beginning with discussion of the Moon organization’s effective domination of the Sushi business in the United States, the program accesses a very important article from The Chicago Tribune. Moon’s Sushi business is prominent in the Chicago market, having started from humble beginnings. The operation has grown enormously, and has as its foundation True World Group:
“On a mission from their leader, five young men arrived in Chicago to open a little fish shop on Elston Avenue. Back then, in 1980, people of their faith were castigated as ‘Moonies’ and called cult members. Yet the Japanese and American friends worked grueling hours and slept in a communal apartment as they slowly built the foundation of a commercial empire. They were led by the vision of Rev. Sun Myung Moon, the self-proclaimed messiah who sustained their spirits as they played their part in fulfilling the global business plan he had devised. Moon founded his controversial Unification Church six decades ago with the proclamation that he was asked by Jesus to save humanity. But he also built the empire blending his conservative politics, savvy capitalism and flair for spectacles such as mass weddings in Madison Square Garden. In a remarkable story that has gone largely untold, Moon and his followers created an enterprise that reaped millions of dollars by dominating one of America’s trendiest indulgences: sushi. Today, one of those five Elston Avenue pioneers, Takeshi Yashiro, serves as a top executive of a sprawling conglomerate that supplies much of the raw fish Americans eat. Adhering to a plan Moon spelled out more than three decades ago in a series of sermons, members of his movement managed to integrate virtually every facet of the highly competitive seafood industry. The Moon followers’ seafood operation is driven by a commercial powerhouse, known as True World Group. It builds fleets of boats, runs dozens of distribution centers and, each day, supplies most of the nation’s estimated 9,000 sushi restaurants.”
2. As the article points out, sushi lovers are unwittingly aiding Moon’s organization when they indulge their taste for that cuisine, given True World’s domination of the industry.
“Although few seafood lovers may consider they’re indirectly supporting Moon’s religious movement, they do just that when they eat a buttery slice of tuna or munch on a morsel of eel in many restaurants. True World is so ubiquitous that 14 of 17 prominent Chicago sushi restaurants surveyed by the Tribune said they were supplied by the company. Over the last three decades, as Moon has faced down accusations of brainwashing followers and personally profiting from the church, he and sushi have made similar if unlikely journeys from the fringes of American society to the mainstream. These parallel paths are not coincidence. They reflect Moon’s dream of revitalizing and dominating the American fishing industry while helping to fund his church’s activities.”
(Idem.)
3. Moon’s “Way of Tuna” plan was the starting point for the far-reaching, vertically integrated commercial enterprise that now dominates the sushi business.
“ ‘I have the entire system worked out, starting with boat building,’ Moon said in ‘The Way of Tuna,’ a speech given in 1980. ‘After we build the boats, we catch the fish and process them for the market, and then have a distribution network. This is not just on the drawing board; I have already done it.’ In the same speech, he called himself ‘king of the ocean.’ It proved not to be an idle boast. The businesses now employ hundreds, including non-church members, from the frigid waters of the Alaskan coast to the iconic American fishing town of Gloucester, Mass. Records and interviews with church insiders and competitors trace how Moon and members of his movement carried out his vision. . . links between Moon’s religious organization and the fish businesses are spelled out in court and government records as well as in statements by Moon and his top church officials. For one thing, Moon personally devised the seafood strategy, helped fund it at its outset and served as a director of one of its earliest companies.”
(Idem.)
4. Moon’s co-mingling of commercial and ostensibly non-profit entities has led to investigations of his operations. Note that the seafood-processing facilities are vertically integrated with fishing fleets and shipbuilding and repairing establishments.
“Moon’s Unification Church is organized under a tax-exempt non-profit entity called The Holy Spirit Association for the Unification of World Christianity. The businesses are controlled by a separate non-profit company called Unification Church International Inc., or UCI. That company’s connections to Moon’s Unification Church go deeper than the shared name. A 1978 congressional investigation into Moon’s businesses concluded: ‘It was unclear whether the UCI had any independent functions other than serving as a financial clearinghouse for various Moon organization subsidiaries and projects.’ UCI as well as its subsidiaries and affiliates such as True World are run largely by church members, [Unification Church official Phillip] Schanker said. The companies were ‘founded by church members in line with Rev. Moon’s vision,’ he said. ‘It’s not coincidence.’ Sometimes the links are more direct. The boatbuilding firm US Marine Corporation shares its headquarters offices with the church and lists the church as its majority shareholder, according to corporate records.”
(Idem.)
5. Again, much of the sushi-loving public is contributing to the welfare of Moon’s organization. Far from being the benevolent, spiritual institution that is claims to be, the Unification Church actually appears to be an extension of he Japanese patriotic and ultra-nationalist societies through the decades and around the world. The patriotic societies paved the way for the rise of fascism in Japan through a campaign of propaganda and systematic political assassination.
“A portion of True World’s profits makes its way to the church through the layers of parent corporations, Yashiro said, adding: ‘We live to serve others, and this is how we serve by building a strong business.’ Moon predicted in 1974 that the fishing business would ‘lay a foundation for the future economy of the Unification Church.’ In fact, while Moon and businesses affiliated with him reportedly have poured millions of dollars into money-losing ventures including The Washington Times newspaper, the seafood ventures have created a profit-making infrastructure that could last-and help support the church-long after the 86-year-old Moon is gone.”
(Idem.)
6. Moon seeded his seafood business in Chicago—the original epicenter of True World Foods.
“Much of the foundation for that success has its roots in Chicago. True World Foods, Yashiro’s wholesale fish distribution business spawned near Lawrence and Elston Avenues, now operates from a 30,000-square-foot complex in Elk Grove Village. The company says it supplies hundreds of local sushi and fine-dining establishments. Even many who might have religious reservations about buying from the company do so for one simple reason: It dependably delivers high-quality sushi. ‘We try not to think of the religion part,” said Haruko Imamura, who with her husband runs Katsu on West Peterson Avenue. ‘We don’t agree with their religion but it’s nothing to do with the business.’ Like Moon himself, who served a 13-month prison sentence for tax fraud in the 1980s, the seafood companies have at times run afoul of U.S. laws. In June 2001, True World Foods’ Kodiak, Alaska, fish processing company pleaded guilty to a federal felony for accepting a load of pollock that exceeded the boat’s 300,000-pound trip limit. The firm was fined $150,000 and put on probation for five years under a plea agreement with prosecutors.”
(Idem.)
7. Not everything is on the level with True World’s operations. Cited for repeated health violations, True World’s Detroit facility tried to bar safety inspectors from the Food and Drug Administration. When that failed, inspectors were intimidated.
“The company also has been cited for sanitation lapses by the Food and Drug Administration. Last year, after repeated FDA inspections found ‘gross unsanitary conditions’ at True World’s suburban Detroit plant, the facility manager tried to bar inspectors from production areas and refused to provide records, according to an FDA report. The plant manager told the inspectors that his True World supervisor was ‘a great man, that he was a part of a new religion, and that if we took advantage of him, then ‘God help you!’ Later, according to that FDA report, an employee wearing a ski mask approached one female inspector, put his thumb and forefinger in the shape of a gun, pointed at her and said: ‘You’re out of uniform. Pow!’ Saying they had been ‘hindered, intimidated and threatened,’ the FDA inspectors took the unusual step of securing a court order compelling True World to let them inspect the facility. Yashiro, chief executive of True World Foods, said in a written statement that the ‘isolated instance ..... arose from a miscommunication.’ The plant is now closed; Yashiro said its operations were consolidated into the Elk Grove Village plant in January, adding: ‘We maintain the highest standards of food safety.’ ”
(Idem.)
8. The program sets forth more about the long-term planning that went into the development of True World’s operations. The Unification Church’s mass weddings have aided the growth of True World Foods by permitting Japanese church members to become American citizens and thereby escape the restrictions on how much fish non-citizens could catch in U.S. territorial waters.
“In the late 1970s, Moon laid out a plan to build seafood operations in all 50 states as part of what he called ‘the oceanic providence.’ This dream of harvesting the sea would help fund the church, feed the world and save the American fishing industry, Moon said. He even suggested that the church’s mass weddings could play a role in the business plan by making American citizens out of Japanese members of the movement. This would help them avoid fishing restrictions applied to foreigners. ‘A few years ago the American government set up a 200-mile limit for offshore fishing by foreign boats,’ Moon said in the 1980 ‘Way of Tuna’ sermon. But by marrying Japanese members to Americans, ‘we are not foreigners; therefore Japanese brothers, particularly those matched to Americans, are becoming ..... leaders for fishing and distribution’ of his movement’s businesses. Sushi’s popularity had flowered enough by 1986 for Moon to gloat that Americans who once thought Japanese were ‘just like animals, eating raw fish,’ were now ‘paying a great deal of money, eating at expensive sushi restaurants.’ He recommended that his flock open ‘1,000 restaurants’ in America.”
(Idem.)
9. Again, note that the Moon organization has boat building and maintenance companies, to facilitate the vertical integration of the sushi operation.
“In fashioning a chain of businesses that would stretch from the ocean to restaurant tables across America, Moon and his followers created a structure uniquely able to capitalize on the nation’s growing appetite for sushi and fresh fish. Some of the business start-up funds came from the Unification Church. In a seven-month period from October 1976 to May 1977, Moon signed some of the nearly $1 million in checks used to establish the fishing business, according to a 1978 congressional report on allegations of improprieties by Moon’s church. After acquiring an ailing boatmaking operation, Master Marine, Moon and his followers turned their attention to establishing the next link in the network. Church members who saw fishing as their calling took to the seas, many powered by Master Marine boats. Moon’s Ocean Church would bring together members and potential converts for 40-day tuna fishing trips every summer in 80 boats he bought for his followers. Many of the tournaments took place off the coast of Gloucester, Mass., by no coincidence one of the first homes to a church-affiliated seafood processing plant. Moon proudly declared in his ‘Way of Tuna’ speech that ‘Gloucester is almost a Moonie town now!’ (The church has since rejected the term Moonies as derogatory.)”
(Idem.)
10. “Sometimes working surreptitiously, Moon affiliates and followers bought large chunks of the key fishing towns–in each case initially sparking anger and suspicion from longtime residents. The church and its members created an uproar when they bought a villa that had been a retirement home run by Roman Catholic nuns. Moon was hanged in effigy in the local harbor. Eventually, such resistance withered away. In Bayou La Batre, Ala., Russell Steiner was among community leaders who clashed with the newcomers. But like many in the town, Steiner has mellowed considerably since the church’s arrival. ‘They have been very active in the community and are very nice people, actually,’ he said. The Alabama shrimp business is among the largest in the Gulf of Mexico, and the nearby boat-building plant has not only built more than 300 boats, but also done repairs on the U.S. Coast Guard and Navy ships, according to federal documents.”
(Idem.)
11. The scale and volume of the Unification Church fishing business is remarkable:
“And the fish businesses have thrived. Company officials say the wholesale distribution arm, True World Foods, had revenue of $250 million last year. According to True World Foods, its fleet of 230 refrigerated trucks delivers raw fish to 7,000 sushi and fine-dining restaurants nationwide. Dozens of those trucks leave each day from the Elk Grove Village warehouse, one of 22 distribution facilities around the country. True World Foods’ Alaska plant processes more than 20 million pounds of salmon, cod and pollock each year, the company says. Its International Lobster operation in Gloucester ships monkfish and lobster around the world from a 25,000-square-foot cold storage facility that is among the largest on the East Coast. And it is again in an expansionist mood. True World recently opened up shop in England and established offices in Japan and Korea, setting its sights on the world’s biggest market for sushi.”
(Idem.)
12. “When Takeshi Yashiro arrived in Chicago in 1980 to help set up one of the earliest outposts of the fishing empire, the area had just a handful of sushi joints. That number has ballooned to more than 200 restaurants statewide, and Yashiro’s fish house has flourished. The son of an Episcopalian Japanese minister, he immigrated to the U.S. and joined the church as a student in San Francisco. On July 1, 1982, Moon blessed Yashiro and his bride along with more than 2,000 other couples in one of his mass wedding ceremonies, in New York City’s Madison Square Garden. The Rainbow Fish House that Yashiro and fellow church members founded on Chicago’s Northwest Side has become not only the city’s dominant sushi supplier but also the nation’s. The fish house became True World Foods, which buys so much tuna from around the world that it has seven people in Chicago solely dedicated to sourcing and pricing the best grades.”
(Idem.)
13. Another advantage enjoyed by True World Foods is the fact that its sales force is fluent in the Asian languages spoken by many first-generation immigrant restaurateurs.
“One of True World’s advantages is that its sales force speaks Chinese, Korean and Japanese, making it easy for first-generation ethnic restaurant owners to do business with them. ‘It’s kind of tough to compete in this industry with a company that is so global, has a major presence in almost every market and that is driven by religious fervor,’ said Bill Dugan, who has been in the fish business for almost 30 years and owns the Fish Guy Market on Elston Avenue, near the original Rainbow shop. ‘We should all be so blessed.’ But not all of True World’s employees are church members. Tuna buyer Eddie Lin recently left True World for Fortune Fish Co., a local rival. Lin said his former workplace was not overtly religious, but he added that as a non-church member he felt his ability to advance was limited. ‘You can feel the difference between the way they see members and non-members,’ Lin said. While disputing such assertions, Yashiro noted that new employees ‘have to know that the founder is the founder of the Unification Church. … It’s a very clear distinction between joining the church or not joining the church. There’s no discrimination, but I think our culture is definitely based on our faith.’ ”
(Idem.)
14. “It’s that faith that makes some uneasy. Wang Kim, a Chicago-area youth ministry director and Moon critic, was certain he could find local Korean Christian sushi restaurateurs who didn’t use True World because they might consider his views heretical. As Kim said, Moon ‘says that he is the Messiah, and we hate that.’ But Kim called back empty-handed. ‘I checked with several of my friends,” he said, ‘and they know it is from Moon but they have to use [them because] they have to give quality to their customers.’ The sheer success of the venture has left lingering questions even in the minds of Moon’s dedicated followers. Yashiro, the Chicago pioneer who now heads True World Foods, remembers dedicating his career and life 26 years ago to achieving Moon’s dream, which included solving world hunger. But that part of Moon’s grand vision has yet to materialize. ‘I was wondering if we are really here to solve the world’s hunger,’ Yashiro said. ‘Every day I pray on it.’ He still hopes True World Foods eventually will help end hunger. But until then, he said, his role will be to grow the business and make money.”
(Idem.)
15. In FTR#84, we examined the profound connections between Moon’s organization and the Bush family. The latest member of the family to fall into Moon’s orbit is Neil Bush, brother of the current seated President.
“ ‘Those who stray from the heavenly way,’ the owner of the flagship Republican newspaper the Washington Times admonished an audience in Taipei on Friday, ‘will be punished.’ This ‘heavenly way,’ the Rev. Sun Myung Moon explained, demands a 51-mile underwater highway spanning Alaska and Russia. Sitting in the front row: Neil Bush, the brother of the president of the United States. Rev. Sun Myung Moon, the South Korean giant of the religious right who owns the Washington Times, is on a 100-city speaking tour to promote his $200 billion ‘Peace King Tunnel’ dream. As he describes it, the tunnel would be both a monument to his magnificence, and a totem to his prophecy of a unified Planet Earth. In this vision, the United Nations would be reinvented as an instrument of God’s plan, and democracy and sexual freedom would crumble in the face of this faith-based glory.”
(“Neil Bush Meets the Messiah” by John Gorenfeld; AlterNet; 12/5/2005.)
16. “The name Peace King Tunnel would allude to the title of authority to which Moon, 86, lays claim, and to which U.S. congressmen paid respect on Capitol Hill in last year’s controversial ‘Crown of Peace’ coronation ritual. Moon’s lobbying campaign is ‘ambitious and diffuse,’ as the D.C. newspaper The Hill reported last year, and the sheer range of guests revealed just how many Pacific Rim political leaders the Times owner has won over, including Filipino and Taiwanese politicians. And the head of the Arizona GOP attended a recent stop in San Francisco. But perhaps the most surprising VIP to tag along is Neil Bush, George H.W. Bush’s youngest and most wayward son, who made both the Philippines and Taiwan legs of the journey, according to reports in newspapers from those countries and statements from Moon’s Family Federation. . . .”
(Idem.)
17. Moon’s values are fundamentally divergent from traditional American democratic principles.
” . . . Moon has frequently gone on the record against Western-style democracy and individualism, calling them results of the fall of Adam. ‘There are three guiding principles for the world to choose from: democracy, Communism and Godism,’ he said in a 1987 sermon. ‘It is clear that democracy as the United States knows and practices it cannot be the model for the world.’ ‘Individualism,’ he also said at the speech — entitled ‘I Will Follow With Gratitude And Obedience’ — ‘is what God hates most and what Satan likes best.’ ”
(Idem.)
18. More about the Bush family’s involvement with the Moon organization: “Neil isn’t the only Bush to attend Moon events. In 1996, his father, President George H.W. Bush, traveled to Buenos Aires with the Reverend in one of several such fundraising expeditions.
‘The 41st president, who told Argentine president Carlos Menem that he had joined Moon in Buenos Aires for the money, had actually known the Korean reasonably well for decades,’ writes former top GOP strategist Kevin Phillips in his book American Dynasty. ‘Their relationship went back to the overlap between Bush’s one-year tenure as CIA director (1976) and the arrival in Washington of Moon, whose Unification Church was widely reported to be a front group for the South Korean Central Intelligence Agency.’ Moon and his aides have called such claims bogus, saying his accusers were controlled by ‘Satan’ to distract from his campaign to destroy communism. . . .”
(Idem.)
19. When contemplating dining on sushi from Moon’s True World Foods or considering the Bush family’s close association with the Moon group, consider the profound link between Japanese fascism and the Unification Church. As noted in paragraph #5, the Unification Church appears to be an extension of the Japanese patriotic and ultranationalist societies through the decades and around the world. Two of the key early personalities in the Unification Church were Ryoichi Sasakawa and Yoshio Kodama. Both were Japanese war criminals and both played a key role in recovering World War II booty looted under the Golden Lily program. Much of the Japanese Golden Lily loot that was stashed in the Philippines was eventually recovered by Japanese fascists, working in tandem with Ferdinand Marcos. Sasakawa and Kodama were two of the prominent figures involved in recovering the Philippines loot. The program sets forth Sasakawa’s role in recovering the gold.
“Only in the mid-1960’s, when Ferdinand Marcos began making onshore and offshore recovery deals with the Japanese, was official hostility relaxed, and Japanese began coming back to the Philippines in significant numbers to hunt for treasure. Small groups came to the Cagayan Valley every year. One team searched around the Bambang cemetery that included Tunnel‑8 and Tunnel‑9. Ben did not recognize anyone in the group. One day they were gone. Villagers found a tree by the cemetery that had been cut down during the night with a chain saw, exposing the inside of the tree trunk. There they clearly saw where several gold bars had been hidden, leaving their impression in the wood as the tree grew around the bars.”
20. “At the end of 1968, President Marcos sent a team to Tokyo to make a deal for more effective joint recoveries. The team included Lieutenant Colonel Florentino Villacrusis, a senior intelligence officer; Brigadier General Onofre T. Ramos, comptroller of the Philippine armed forces; and two other officers. Their mission was to acquire a set of Golden Lily treasure maps in return for a share to Japan of whatever Marcos recovered. If Tokyo did not cooperate, Marcos warned that he would close down Japanese companies all over the islands.”
(Idem.)
21. “In his first two years as president, Marcos had authorized offshore recoveries by a syndicate of Japanese and Korean gangsters, headed by Kodama and Machii Hisayuki, head of the Tosei-kai. Another partner was billionaire fixer Sasakawa Ryoichi, another of Kodama’s Sugamo Prison cellmates, who staged speedboat races, one of Japan’s favorite betting sports and a convenient way to launder money. His true wealth came from secret deals with President Sukarno and President Marcos to share in the recovery of war loot in Indonesia and the Philippines. ‘I was very close to Marcos,’ Sasakawa told journalists, ‘long before he became president.’ He pointed Marcos at several sites, including the sunken cruiser Nachii in Manila Bay, and in return was allowed to build cemeteries and memorials for Japanese war dead in the Philippines, on property that just happened to include Golden Lily sites. ‘I personally donated the biggest cultural hall in [the Philippines]’, Sasakawa boasted, ‘as well as supplied the cement.’ Forty thousand sacks, to be precise.”
(Ibid.; pp. 158–159.)
22. Kodama’s rise within the Imperial Japanese national security establishment (he was a rear admiral) was aided by his role in looting the Asian underworld on behalf of Japan.
“Six months before the rape of Nanking, General Doihara called in the one man who could take full charge of looting China’s underworld — Kodama Yoshio, Japan’s top gangster. Normally based in Tokyo, Kodama moved to Shanghai, where he became Doihara’s chief liaison with Boss Tu and the Green Gang. Before the war ended, Kodama was Golden Lily’s most effective negotiator with gangsters in Indochina, Siam, Malaya, Burma, the Philippines and Indonesia, holding their feet to the fire or, when necessary, shooting them. Kodama was short, burly, squat, and had the meaty face of a professional fighter, with thick lips and heavy scar tissue. His fingers were knobby from karate, and could crush a larynx. The son of a failed businessman in Nihonmatsu, at age nine he was sent off to his aunt in Korea, where he worked in a steel mill. At twelve he fled back to Japan, where he was adopted by yakuza who put him to work beating up labor organizers. By 1931 he was a favorite of Black Dragon boss Toyama, implicated in the attempted murder of cabinet ministers. Sentenced to prison, Kodama wrote a memoir that became a handbook for fanatics. After his release, Toyama sent him to Manchuria to do wet work for General Doihara. In Tokyo a few months later, he was jailed for plotting to bomb imperial advisors, staying in jail until 1937. He was sprung from jail by Doihara in April 1937, on the condition that he devoted his violent energies to looting China’s underworld. This epiphany, the transformation of Kodama from thug to super- patriot, was suggested by Black Dragon’s Toyama, whose own stature as a patriot was affirmed in 1924 when he was a guest at Emperor Hirohito’s wedding. In November 1937, after six months of briefings in the Foreign Ministry, Kodama arrived in Shanghai to deal with the problem of carelessness. In a postwar memoir, he denounced ‘the wanton spending of secret funds, on wine, women and debauchery ... in every city under Japanese occupation’. And the careless destruction of valuable objects: ‘... in every temple and shrine ... in the occupied areas, I found the heads of Buddhas ... broken or cut off’. If soldiers, mostly uneducated farm boys, were too stupid to steal the whole Buddha, they must be shot. While Kodama’s lieutenants put these orders into effect, he spent his days taking control of alcohol, drugs, and other prime commodities. All proceeds were diverted from Chinese racketeers to Golden Lily, minus a handling charge for Kodama himself. Ultimately, Kodama was responsible to Prince Chichibu, and to the throne. . . .”
(Ibid.; pp. 40–41.)
23. Kodama’s influence went well beyond Japan and Asia. Kodama worked very closely with the CIA during the same time period in which he became one of the early prime-movers within the Unification Church. Much of the wealth that Kodama accumulated through his wartime looting was eventually merged with other funds derived from the Golden Lily program, such as the M‑Fund.
“Another great fortune discovered by U.S. intelligence services in 1946 was $13-billion in war loot amassed by underworld godfather Kodama Yoshio who, as a ‘rear admiral’ in the Imperial Navy working with Golden Lily in China and Southeast Asia, was in charge of plundering the Asian underworld and racketeers. He was also in charge of Japan’s wartime drug trade throughout Asia. After the war to get out of Sugamo Prison and avoid prosecution for war crimes, Kodama gave $100-million to the CIA, which was added to the M‑Fund’s coffers. Kodama then personally financed the creation of the two political parties that merged into Japan’s ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), strongly backed to this day by Washington.”
(Ibid.; p. 8.)
24. Kodama was on excellent terms with Emperor Hirohito, who assisted with the acquisition of the $13-billion fund Kodama eventually combined with the M‑Fund. Kodama was the kingpin of the Japanese drug trade during, and after, World War II. The drug trade was one of the primary sources of Kodama’s largesse.
“Another source of underground funds was Kodama, who was reported to have amassed some $13-billion in war loot for his personal use. This included two truck-loads of diamonds, gold bars, platinum ingots, radium, copper, and other vital materials. In order to curry favor with MacArthur’s men, Skukan Bunshun said at war’s end ‘Kodama had a good portion of [his] valuables transported to the vault of the Imperial Family in the Imperial Palace.’ Despite his lifelong involvement in murder, kidnapping, drugs and extortion, Kodama is said to have been regarded by Emperor Hirohito as a true patriot, possibly because of the great sums he generated for Golden Lily. This may explain why Japan’s top gangster was permitted to hide some of his loot in palace vaults. But it goes deeper to include narcotics.”
(Ibid.; p. 108.)
25. “In the spring of 1945, Kodama made a quick trip to Taiwan to see that its many heroin factories were dismantled for return to Japan, along with remaining stocks of heroin and morphine. On his return, Kodama was assigned to be a special advisor to the emperor’s uncle, Prince Higashikuni, who served as Japan’s prime minister briefly at the start of the U.S. occupation. According to Kodama’s own memoir, immediately after the surrender, Higashikuni had ‘two or three of us councilors arrange a meeting and secretly, unknown to his cabinet ministers, [Higashikuni] visited General MacArthur in Yokohama.’ Kodama provides no details of what transpired at this meeting, or whether he accompanied the prince.”
(Idem.)
26. Again, Kodama worked very closely with the CIA.
“Kodama then spent two years in Sugamo Prison as an indicted war criminal, but was magically released in mid-1948 when he made a deal with General Willoughby to give the CIA $100-million (equal to $1‑billion in today’s values.) This payment bought Kodama his freedom from prison and from any prosecution for war crimes. The money was placed in one of the secret slush funds controlled by the CIA station at the U.S. Embassy. Subsequently, Kodama was put directly on the CIA payroll, where he remained for many years, until his death in 1984. Tad Szulc of The New York Times wrote, ‘Kodama had a working relationship with the CIA.’ Chalmers Johnson said Kodama was ‘probably the CIA’s chief asset in Japan.’ ”
(Idem.)
27. Kodama’s preeminent role in the Asian heroin trade overlapped his service on behalf of the U.S. government.
“While literally an employee of the U.S. Government, Kodama continued to oversee Japan’s postwar drug trade. Heroin labs were moved back not only from Taiwan, but from North China, Manchuria and Korea. Chinese who had collaborated with Japan in drug processing and distribution, were given sanctuary and began operating from Japanese soil. Two of the three major players in Asian narcotics soon died: Nationalist China’s general Tai Li was assassinated in a 1946 plane crash; Shanghai godfather Tu Yueh-sheng died in Hong Kong of natural causes in 1951. Kodama was left Asia’s top druglord, while on the U.S. payroll. This could have been embarrassing, for Japan’s dominant role in narcotics was widely known and undisputed, but a Cold War hush descended over it like an Arctic whiteout. During the occupation, U.S. propaganda characterized Asia’s drug trade as exclusively the enterprise of leftists and communist agents. In truth it was dominated by Kodama in Japan, and by Generalissimo Chiang through the KMT opium armies based in the Golden Triangle, who were under the direct control of the Generalissimo’s son, Chiang Ching-kuo, the KMT chief of military intelligence at that time. (The two top KMT opium warlords in the Golden Triangle, General Tuan and General Li spoke to us openly of this.)”
(Ibid.; pp. 108–109.)
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